Affordable Care Act picks winners and losers

The Obama administration’s plans to change the classes of drugs covered by Medicare are very dangerous to the health of the patients who depend on them. They are proposing to remove the protected status of immunosuppressant drugs used in transplant patients, antidepressants and antipsychotic medications. For many people dependent on Medicare for health coverage this could be a death sentence.

Transplant patients must take daily immunosuppressant drugs to keep their body from rejecting the organ. These medications are very expensive, costing thousands of dollars each month. As someone who has a family member on kidney dialysis who is on the waiting list for a kidney transplant, this proposal is devastating.

When the Affordable Care Act was passed, it took some funding away from Medicare, and now it appears that those cuts will directly impact the most vulnerable Medicare patients. The Affordable Care Act was touted as a way to expand health-care coverage for all Americans, but it appears it is just another federal program that picks winners and losers.

Unfortunately, my family will be one of the losers if these proposals are adopted.